RVA magazine recently posted an interview with Richmond, VA native female wrestler Mickie James. In the interview, she talks extensively about her career in the WWE, country music, and the state of female wrestling today versus when she entered the industry.

Her words shed light on a world that most people know little about. You see female wrestlers on TV occasionally, but they don’t usually profile them on Entertainment Tonight.

I remember when I was a kid, and my older brother was obsessed with the WWE. He had an action figure of Stone Cold Steve Austin. It would sometimes give me the creeps until I recluded back to my angst, and I never tried to understand why he loved Pro-Wrestling. To be honest, the female action figures looked like toys you would look at during private time.

I found myself casting those biases aside when reading about Mickie James. She was charming and honest. She made some comments about the state of female wrestling that I felt applied beyond the field of wrestling:

“We all kind of came in that same way, that grass roots kind of way. We fought and clawed our way up the Indy scene to try and make a name for ourselves and build credibility just so WWE would take a look at us in the first place. I don't think that there's anyone there who legitimately has had that torch passed to them in a way so that's the main difference to me. There are obviously legit wrestlers like Nattie and I think Alicia Fox is great. I think it'd be great for someone to come in and take that division to a whole new level. I'm not sitting here burying those girls though because obviously they're on TV, doing a great job, and they have the Divas reality show. I think that show is awesome because it's giving depth to those characters that you wouldn't necessarily know anything about other than they are great wrestlers. You don’t know anything about their personal lives and it's kind of opening that door to get people more emotionally invested into them.”

As woman in any male-dominated field, we are joined by the common hardship we may face. I appreciate that she discusses the WWE, TNA, and other female wrestlers in great detail without trashing anyone. It is important that we support our sisters even if they are also our competition for a job, even if our job involves beating each other up.